BY MICHAEL DEVLIN
A new exhibition opened last Friday night at Omagh's Community House featuring the work of talented young Fermanagh artist, Pete Healy. It comprises a range of painting styles, featuring landscapes, dreamscapes, traditional work and more abstract pieces.
The launch is already attracting the attention of local collectors and the wider artistic fraternity.
Inspired by his experiences travelling around Europe, and more specifically Amsterdam, the body of work Pete reckons, reflects the juxtaposition of a country boy in a big foreign city.
"I was born and raised in Fermanagh, and have enjoyed drawing and painting from an early age," he explained. "So, I pretty much knew what I wanted to do when I grew up".
Pete studied illustration under the title of 'graphic design': "But', he went on, " I was there to draw and paint, so graphics never really interested me. After university, not knowing what to do, I decided to go travelling a little with a friend."
For Pete, a one way ticket to Italy was as good an idea as any at that time and, after spending a week there, he continued on to Budapest, and then the Czech Republic.
Eventually deciding on Amsterdam as a destination, he is now surprised at how long he would eventually stay.
"The money was running out, so we decided to go to Amsterdam to look for work," Pete added. "In the end, I stayed for six years. It just went that way."
Gravitating from job to job, barman to labourer and back again, Pete now believes that it was Amsterdam and its people that helped channel and shape his art at that time.
"Barman, labouring, and cafework, all of these things helped me eat, stay dry and pay for paints. I had no pressure, so this left me open to experiment".
He added that Amsterdam's multiculturalism was historically and, for many people, the inspiration for scripts, books, and painting.
"I found it to be no different. The mixture of a fully functioning city, a seedy underbelly and endless characters, proved to be of constant amusement and inspiration. This visionary melting pot has added more than a hint of itself to my paintings.
"They reflect the sometimes overwhelming atmosphere that I found as a country boy in a busy city".
This body of work has turned out to be the reflection of that period of time in his life and the paintings are 'visual stepping stones' that make a path from the time he spent there to this last year back at home.
Full of vibrant colours, textures and spanning the traditional and surreal, Pete Healy's exhibition opened at the Community House, Omagh last Friday night.
The exposition will be open to the public during office hours (9am until 5pm, Monday through Friday) for the month of June.
For more information contact the Community House on 028 82 242040.
